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CHAPTER TWO

NICO

N ico’s sluggish eyelids opened and immediately slammed shut. The glaring Vegas sun hit hard. She shielded her eyes with one hand and felt around her bed with the other.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

It took her a moment, but finally her eyes were able to remain open beyond a couple seconds and she could make out Charles, his spiky blonde hair and pale blue eyes looming over her, twirling her eye mask with one hand and a platinum-blonde wig with the other.

“Give it to me,” she demanded.

“What?” He held up the mask and then the wig. “This? Or this?”

She tried to snatch the mask, but he pulled away and placed both items on the dresser.

When he turned back around, he held up a wad of cash and narrowed his eyes. “Or perhaps you mean this.”

“Charles!” Nico cried, sitting up.

That was a mistake , she thought, feeling queasy.

He handed her a glass of green liquid. “Drink this.”

“It looks like a specimen you collected in a swamp. Either that or a toxic waste dump. What’s in it?”

Charles said nothing as he crossed his lean, muscular arms, showing off his sculpted shoulders.

Nico sniffed and pulled back. She had only one free hand, and she couldn’t decide whether to clutch her head or her stomach.

“Come on, Charlemagne. What’s in it?”

“Calling me by my birth name changes nothing,” he scoffed. “Just drink it already.”

She looked up sulkily at her roommate and best friend.

They’d first met at Drink and Dive when Charles rescued her from an angry guy who suspected Nico had conned him. She had.

That had been a first for Nico. Not the con but the rescue.

No one had ever jumped in to help her in the past. But Charles did and he did it brilliantly.

He suddenly appeared like that angel Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life and put on an Oscar-worthy performance of someone on the brink of vomiting.

He looked just about to do so all over the man’s shirt.

The man and anyone standing within a six-foot radius backed away and were so stunned, it gave Nico and Charles the chance to escape.

It didn’t take long before they’d decided to pool their resources—his from dealing cards and hers from low-level racing, poker, and pool—and share an apartment just off the Strip.

Best friend? Charles was her only friend. He knew everything about her past and still loved her.

Nico sighed, staring at the murky liquid. Charles’s morning-after remedies always worked. And right now, she couldn’t decide whether or not that was a good thing.

She knew she should drink it. Knew she would drink it. But that didn’t stop her from not wanting to drink it.

Nico shut her eyes and held her nose. “Ugh,” she groaned, after downing half the glass.

“So, tell me what happened? Start with how it is you got this.” Charles held up the wad of cash. “As if I don’t already know.”

“Well, if you already know, then you don’t need me to tell you.”

“I still want details.”

Nico made a move to lie back down, but Charles stopped her.

“Uh-uh. Not a good idea.” He propped two big pillows behind her. “Sit up and drink the rest of it. Trust me. You’ll feel better. When do you have to be there?”

“What time is it?”

“Eight a.m.”

Nico groaned. “In a few hours.”

“I can’t believe you did this the night before—correction— the morning of what could turn out to be one of the most important days of your life.”

There was more than that Charles would find it hard to believe once Nico gave him the details. If she did. She didn’t want to. Not now. And as for some details, not ever.

“I wonder if this is evidence of some kind of perverted psychology,” Charles reflected.

“Do you want to fail? Or maybe you want an excuse if you do fail? Maybe you want to be able to blame it on this? Wait a minute!” Charles slapped his palm on his forehead so dramatically it was worthy of a Meryl Streep performance. “Of course! Didn’t I tell you?”

Didn’t you tell me? thought Nico. Did I miss something? You haven’t told me anything yet.

“Imposter syndrome! That’s it!”’ Charles cried.

Nico glanced over at the crumpled, faded photo of a woman sitting in a frame that sat on her bedside table.

Even flattening it behind a plate of glass hadn’t removed the creases and wrinkles from her having carried that photo in her pocket and fondled it with sweaty palms every day for years.

She should be grateful for every crease and wrinkle.

Had she not carried it in her pocket every day, she wouldn’t have had it with her on that day. And then she wouldn’t have it at all.

Her eyes shifted to the frame next to it—a photo of her grandfather working on a Porsche at his shop.

Originally, the photo had belonged to one of her grandfather’s loyal customers and later on one of Nico’s Formula 3 sponsors, who’d been kind enough to give the photo to her.

The man had displayed the photo because the Porsche had been a sentimental favorite of his.

But Nico was drawn to it because her grandfather was in it and she didn’t have even one photo of him.

She couldn’t even see his face in it.

Nico had been raised by her grandfather after her mother died when she was two years old. She’d never known her biological father. He’d disappeared as soon as her mother had become pregnant.

If only she’d carried a photo of her grandfather in her pocket. But why would she when she saw him every day? She couldn’t have known that day was the last day she would ever see him.

She looked away and was met with Charles’s pensive stare.

She knew Charles was right, of course. She shouldn’t have gone to that dive bar last night, shouldn’t have played pool, definitely shouldn’t have played pool with one Rocco Vittori, and most definitely shouldn’t have celebrated taking that arrogant prick down a peg if even only for a second at another bar with a bottle of champagne.

Or was it two?

She kept telling herself the champagne was to celebrate. But truth was, she’d needed it after that kiss. The bubbly was supposed to wash his warm, wet tongue and what it did to her from her memory. But it hadn’t worked. Her body still hummed when she thought about it.

Stop!

All she needed was a shower and some coffee. And the rest of that green swamp from hell. She braced herself and finished the ghastly concoction.

Charles folded his arms. “I’m waiting.”

“Can I tell you later? I really don’t feel up to it.”

“All the more reason to tell me now. With your synapses focused on that and away from your head and your gut, you’ll feel better more quickly. It has something to do with blood flow.”

“How do you know that?”

Charles waved his hand. “I read it somewhere. Can’t remember where.”

Charles was always full of advice, supposedly based on scientific fact and extensive research. Problem was he could never remember where he’d accessed either the facts or the research.

Suddenly Templeton, Nico’s pet rat, popped his head out from Charles’s pajama pocket.

“See,” Charles said, “Temple wants to hear too. We’re all eyes and ears. Go. And no skimping. We want the unabridged, uncensored version.”

Charles settled himself on the edge of Nico’s bed.

She sighed. Might as well get it over with. Charles would eventually get it out of her anyway. At least his charmed potion was beginning to work. She was starting to feel better already.

“That,” she said, pointing at the money, “I got winning at pool.”

“I figured as much. It was either that or poker.”

“I went to a bar, thinking I would just have a drink.”

Hopefully Charles wouldn’t ask—

“What bar?”

Damn it.

Nico shut her eyes. “Drink and Dive.”

“What?!” Charles glared at her. “You promised you would never again set foot in that dump. There are plenty of other places to get a drink. And definitely better places to have a decent cocktail than that rathole.” Charles glanced at Templeton.

“No offense, Temple.” He turned back to Nico. “Did anyone recognize you?”

Nico shook her head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t recognize anyone there.”

Not entirely true.

“Everyone behind the bar was new,” Nico added. “The bouncers too.”

That was true.

Charles sighed. “Like I said, some kind of perverted psychology.”

They both remained silent until Charles finally spoke.

“You really look like your mom,” he said, glancing at the photo. He picked up the one alongside it. “I bet you look like Grandpapa too.”

Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t.

Nico worried she was forgetting what her grandfather looked like.

That was why every day, she did a literal sketch of him, putting pencil to paper.

She was convinced that this imprinted the image of her grandfather in her brain more firmly than had she just done a mental one.

Charles had actually told her there was scientific research to confirm that view.

He’d read it somewhere. He just couldn’t remember where.

Charles sighed as he placed the frame back on the bedside table. “I could tell you weren’t having a good time last night. You didn’t dance once. Do you think maybe today had something to do with why you went to Drink and Dive? Maybe nerves?”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe that letter that’s still sitting on the credenza? The one you have yet to open? The one postmarked from Italy?”

Nico swallowed. Why of all places did it have to come from Italy? That meant that asshole was in Italy. Inside that envelope was her past. She felt as though she’d be opening Pandora’s box minus the hope once she unlocked it.

The Formula 1 schedule had been put out months ago. Two of the races took place in Italy.

A thought suddenly occurred to Nico, and she slivered her eyes, peering at Charles. “How do you know the letter came from Italy?”

Charles tossed his head, his tone huffy. “Just because I read the envelope doesn’t mean I read the letter … or tried to.”

Nico smirked. “No success?”